Two Green Bay area men who federal agents say bought guns in Wisconsin for California drug dealers have been charged in a federal indictment with being part of a straw buyer ring.

According to court records, Customs and Border Protection agents seized 16 weapons from a Toyota pickup truck crossing into Mexico from Arizona in the summer of 2015. The guns had been purchased by 10 people in seven other states and were disassembled and hidden in the vehicle.

Two of the guns traced to Gary Hancock of Shawano who ultimately told investigators he had been a "straw buyer" for a drug and firearm trafficking ring based in the San Francisco Bay area of California in 2013 and 2014, often at the direction of Jesus Zepeda, also of Shawano.

Hancock, 24, made one purchase at a gun show and others at Gander Mountain.

Another man also told agents he bought a couple of weapons for the same group and got paid about $500 for each transaction. He said he has seen the buyers dismantle the weapons and seal the parts in plastic, to be hidden in vehicles for the trip back to California.

Hancock and Zepeda, 29, are charged with conspiring to make false written statements to a licensed firearms dealer and to sell or deliver guns to people outside Wisconsin, and three counts related to specific gun purchases.

Another Shawano man, Joshua Natzke, told investigators the men who got the guns also drove 200 pounds of marijuana to Shawano from California and that it was then sold locally and in Chicago and Ohio. Natzke said he bought two guns for the Californians, who he knew wanted them to further drug trafficking in Mexico and California, but was not named in the federal indictment.